Why not? They just called for genocide from the floor of the UN and correctly anticipated deafening international silence. A potential last gasp of opposition to their nuclear program crashed and burned last week. So while they didn't actually bring down a US jet this morning, they're still feeling pretty darned good about life:

Amid false allegations from Iranian media that a U.S. plane was forced down after accidentally entering Iranian airspace, FOX News learned Tuesday about another tense incident that occurred last month near the Strait of Hormuz. On Sept. 6, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard threatened to shoot down U.S. helicopters flying cover aboard the USS Peliliu patrolling in the area, according to a classified military transcript of the radio exchange... Military sources told FOX News that this sort of incident happens nearly daily around the Strait, which is heavily trafficked by oil tankers.

This has been going on for months. In January five IRG speedboats came within seconds of getting blown out of the water by the US Navy. In April three more speedboats tried to swarm a US patrol boat before getting turned away.

Constant cat-and-mouse naval incidents have usually been signs that hardliners are in control of the Iranian regime. Which is weird, because liberal foreign policy elites have been clear that offering Iran concessions would moderate the regime. Which the Bush Administration more or less tried after the January incident. Which apparently did the opposite of moderating the regime. At least these experts haven't been absolutely wrong about those anti-Ahmadinejad backlashes that they keep predicting, otherwise there'd be no reason to assume that they're not just making things up.

How about another round of EU-backed sanctions? What's that you say? Ahmadinejad already moved Iranian assets out of European banks to circumvent asset freezes? Well fuck.

References and previously behind the jump...